Without Dash

Now, your house looks a lot more tidy and you can welcome visitors without being embarrassed, it is time to have a look at your car. I do not have a car, so I can only hope that someday soon I will have this luxury problem myself. As a lifelong passenger in cars of friends and relatives I have often heard a sentence similar to “Don’t look at the trash”, or “Don’t worry, just step on it”, and very often a backseat was quickly cleaned before I could enter the car. So, I do know that car clutter is a common problem.

The car should be decluttered just like all the places in the house; Empty it, clean it, sort the stuff, and re-organize it. So to start: empty out everything from the car, also the glove compartment, the trunk, the side pockets in the door; everything. Now clean out the car, or bring it to a car care service to have that task done for you. If you have chosen to bring your car to a cleaner, you can sort out the stuff while you are waiting for it to be done.

Things that should not be in your car are food wrappers/containers/cans/bags/boxes and other garbage, your dry cleaning that you never dropped off, the ice scraper in June or other out of season tools.

Things that you should keep and store properly are:

• The bare necessities in your glove compartment; owner’s manual, road map, vehicle registration information, accident report form, list of emergency numbers, and most likely some tissues, a pen, notepad, etc.
• A little box with your change. You can use a mint box or small purse for it. Now you do not need to have coins everywhere in the car and you always have them handy for parking or tolls.
• A plastic bag to be used as garbage bag. Leave it at the inside of the door, or on the floor of the passenger seat and put your trash in there instead of on the floor, in the side pockets or on the dashboard. At the end of your day, do not forget to throw the bag away.
• Music. Best of course is to keep all your music on your iPod, or listen to FM radio. This way you do not need to clutter your car with CDs and cassettes. If you do prefer to listen to your CD’s, use visor organizers to keep them together and find them easily.
• Use a behind-the-seat-organizer to store items for the backseat travelers. These items include kids’ toys, travel games, small books, magazines, etc.

To keep the car tidy store everything where it belongs, and take out the things that are not supposed to be in the car at the end of each day. Clean the car regularly or plan to bring your car to the car care service regularly to put a little pressure on yourself of cleaning it out before you bring it. Also, implement a No Food rule to keep the car tidy and smelling fresh.

Now, you drive around in a tidy car and can pick up a passenger without being embarrassed. Of course, the downside is that you might be asked more often for a favor of driving someone like me around.

If you do no t have a car, this post might not be so interesting to you. But knowing that everyone is reading this through the Internet, tomorrow is going to be a great day for decluttering, because we are going to deal with your computer! You can also sign up and receive each update directly in your mailbox.

Tags: declutter